What you don’t know could be bad for your dog, causing illness and even death. Most of us don’t pay a lot of attention to what we feed our pets, trusting manufacturer labeling to be accurate and regulations to be followed. The truth is that there really aren’t very many rules about what can and can’t go into dog food.

Too Bad To Eat

Dog food can contain a lot of things we wouldn’t be happy about eating, including bones, nervous tissue, organs, skin, ligaments, hair and meat from animals with diseases. The bodies of euthanized pets and zoo animals have been used, too.

Most of the “good” meat that makes its way into dog and cat food has long since been processed so heavily that all its nutritive value is gone. If you see ingredients on your dog’s food bag like “animal meal” or “poultry broth”, you shouldn’t imagine the sort of thing you’d eat.

Animal meal is what’s left after a carcass has been processed to remove all the fat and meat. What remains is ground up and dried, resulting in a meal that has a similar texture to corn meal and included in pet food. Broths and similar substances in pet food are made of processed carcasses that come from many different kinds of animals, cooked until a liquid is produced.

Not Illegal

Unfortunately, none of the disgusting or unhealthy ingredients in dog food are illegal. While we have reasonably strict rules about what can be part of human food and those laws are well enforced, pets don’t have that protection. Rules about pet food ingredients are much looser and more poorly enforced.

That means that almost anything could end up in your dog’s food, and that the labels on the package that claim it’s “healthy and balanced” have little to no meaning. All that those words mean, in a legal sense, is that those foods contain a particular percentage of fat, protein, and added minerals and vitamins.

Toxic Additives

All of us have probably heard of the recent pet food recalls created by contaminated wheat gluten from China. However, melamine isn’t the only dangerous additive that can be found in pet food. There are a lot of preservatives that aren’t allowed in human food, and which cause illnesses like cancer, kidney failure, liver failure and more.

Not Just Cheap Foods

It’s not just cheap pet food that’s the problem, either. There’s no regulation on high end or organic foods, as well. While these pet food may be of higher quality, we have no way of knowing whether they use the same ingredients as their cheaper relatives or not. That can make it hard to find a food that’s good for your dog, even if it’s one recommended by your vet.

Your Options

There are a number of options. The first is to learn to read your dog’s food labels. Ingredients higher on the label are present in greater quantities, so look for named meats high on the list – not meals or broths, and not generic words like “poultry” “meat” or “fish”, but named species and types.

Learn the preservatives and additives that can hurt your dog’s health, and avoid foods that are heavy on grains – they’re not the natural food for dogs or cats. You can also learn to create high quality dog foods on your own – there are many good recipes out there for the dedicated pet owner. Just make sure you learn to do something, because most pet foods are dangerous for your dog.

Click Here to discover what dog foods have been proven to be harmful to a dog’s health. Find out what the best dog food is to make sure your pooch is in perfect health.